“But Dylan doesn’t do that?”
“Not that I’ve ever seen. That’s why the foreign girls all steer clear of him. Plus, he doesn’t serve up drugs to them; they have to go to Gray for that.”
“Gray’s a drug dealer?”
She laughed. “You’re so funny! No, he’s not really a dealer. He just gets stuff for you if you need it. They don’t hire girls who’ve got a serious habit, but if you need a bit of a hit to put the sparkle back in your eyes, Gray is the man to see.”
“I like Dylan a little more now,” I said.
Caddy went to the bar and got us some more drinks, although it didn’t look as though she’d had to pay for them, judging by the sweet little flirtatious chat with the barman and the wiggle as she walked back to our table.
“He’s a cutie, that guy behind the bar,” she said to me.
“I guess he’s fair game,” I said, “since he’s not a customer.”
“You think I should give him my number?” she asked, sipping her drink.
“Why not?”
She didn’t answer, just glanced back across the room to where the barman was still watching. She looked sad for a moment, thoughtful.
“You’ve got someone,” I said.
“No,” she said, quickly. “But it’s not easy to keep a relationship going with our line of work. Ask Chanelle.”
“How did you get into dancing?” I asked then, curious.
“I started doing it to earn some extra cash,” she said. “I was waitressing weekends; one of the girls there started, and after a couple of weeks she left the restaurant. I bumped into her in a bar a few weeks later; she was raving about it and going on about how much money she was making. She made it sound so easy.”
“So you started at the Barclay?”
“No,” she said. “I started working in a strip pub. Very different from the Barclay. Still fun, just not quite so . . . refined. And you can earn good money because there isn’t a house fee. You only pay commission to the bar.”
The barman was still looking. Caddy was ignoring him now.
“Anyway, did you seriously show up at the Barclay to practice? What did Dylan say?”
“He was kind of giving me tips,” I said.
Caddy laughed, pushing her hair out of her eyes. “I bet he thought all his Christmases had come at once. Did you strip for him?”
“No!” I said, shocked. “I just practiced on the pole. I wanted to try keeping my shoes on.”
“And?”
“I’ll get there. Feels weird, especially inverting. The shoes make my legs feel heavy.”
I thought back a few hours: Dylan sitting by the side of the stage, watching me. His face expressionless, waiting for me to hurry up and finish so he could get back to whatever business he’d been dealing with before I’d rung the doorbell. “What does he actually do?”
“Who?”
“Dylan. Is he a doorman?”
“No. He helps them out sometimes when the club’s busy—they all do, if they have to. Dylan works for Fitz, not for the club. He’s been with Fitz for years.”
“Doing what, exactly?”
Caddy shrugged, smiling at the barman again in preparation for getting us another round. “I guess he’s, like, Fitz’s enforcer.”
Chapter Twelve
After I left Joanna, I went up to the office to check my mailbox. The rain had passed over and the sun was shining. It was almost warm.
Cam was in his office, feet up on the desk, talking to Maureen. She was standing in the doorway with her arms folded. They had conversations like this on a regular basis: Maureen would be complaining about something, Cameron would placate her and do nothing, and so things went on as normal.
“. . . all I’m saying is, you should be doing something about it, not just sitting there.”
“And, as I said, I’ll get some quotes. I can’t do it overnight.”
I turned the key in the lock of the mailbox and Maureen noticed me for the first time.
“Ah, Genevieve! You think we need gates that lock, don’t you?”
“Um—well, I . . .”
“After what happened. We could all end up murdered in our beds, like that poor girl.”
“She wasn’t murdered in a bed,” Cameron said helpfully.
My mailbox was full of junk, as usual—free newspapers and pizza ads—even though I had a sign on my box that expressly requested mail only. I sifted through them in case something important had slipped in.
“I don’t see what the problem is,” Maureen said, her voice rising. “Surely it’s a straightforward thing to do. Lord knows we pay enough to live here; the least you can do is make sure we have some degree of security. And that man, last night! Honestly, it’s the final straw . . .”
“What man?” I asked.
Maureen turned to me again. “Pat saw a man hanging around in the parking lot yesterday evening. She called the police, but by the time they got here it was pitch-black, there was no sign of him.”
“What did he look like?”
“She didn’t get a good look. He was standing by the side of the office, just out there, skulking around. Obviously up to no good.”
“Probably one of those journalists,” Cameron offered.
“It doesn’t matter who he was!” Maureen said. “It’s that he was there at all, and he had no business to be. If we had decent gates, it wouldn’t have happened!”
“What did the police say?” I asked. “Did they have a look around?”
“Well, no, I don’t think they did. They were here for about twenty minutes. Then they said they would keep an eye on the place overnight. Not good enough, really, but of course what can they do?”
“I’ve fixed the lights again,” Cameron said, “and I’ll ask for some quotes for the gates. These things aren’t cheap, you know.”
“You can’t put a price on safety,” Maureen said.
Cameron’s cell phone rang then and I thought that would be the end of the discussion, but Maureen showed no signs of moving. While he spoke to someone on the other end of the line about booking the crane for a hull inspection, Maureen turned her attention to me.
“We should put some sort of petition together,” she said.
“A petition? To Cameron?”
“To make him get some decent gates!”
I left them to it then, despite Cameron flashing me a pleading look. As I locked my mailbox again he swiveled in his chair to face the wall.
On the dock Oswald the cat was enjoying the sunshine, stretched out, the end of his tail flicking. His eyes were half-closed but I could tell he was watching the young gull sitting on the roof of the Scarisbrick Jean. When I approached, the gull flew off and Oswald jumped up and wound himself around my legs, the way he always did whenever anyone came near. I scratched the top of his head.
“Hello, old friend,” I said. “Is it nearly dinnertime?”
He followed me to the Revenge and sat at the bottom of the gangplank, twisting to lick his shoulder blade.
The cabin was chilly, despite the sun. I put the kettle on the burner and turned on the radio for some company.
Pat had seen a man outside yesterday evening, near the office. Could it have been Dylan? Maybe that was why he hadn’t been able to speak when he called me last night. Maybe he had been outside, waiting for the right moment to come to the boat, and instead Pat had called the police and he’d had to take off.
I didn’t go back to the Barclay to practice again. I got used to working there, just as I got used to walking and dancing in the heels. I learned the best and quickest ways to make money, too. And I learned that being a good pole dancer opened up opportunities to maximize my income.
For a start, I realized pretty quickly that I was much better on the pole than I was at the lap dances. Caddy was more of an all-rounder, better than me at the lap dances. A lot of the girls had never bothered to learn to pole dance properly, and mostly what they did was walk around the pole, snake against it
and do an occasional easy spin.
The real money was to be made on lap dances and in the VIP area, so for most of the girls, dancing around the pole was a waste of time, tolerated only because they could spot their regulars from the stage and head straight for them as soon as they finished.
But the pole was the best part of it for me, and, although some of the girls thought I was nuts, I got more adventurous as my confidence grew. My pole routines attracted more attention and as a result I found it easier to approach people afterward. I did get better at the lap dances, but I was still no more than average. So I increased my chances of getting private dances by impressing them on the pole.
Two weeks after my afternoon practice session, I saw Dylan again in the club. I was doing my first pole dance of the evening, warming up with some swings and wriggles, waiting for the beat to kick in so I could climb and spin, all the while looking out for the potentially lucrative customers. And there he was—sitting at the back, in one of the VIP booths. I noticed him because he was watching me, and then I realized he was sitting with Fitz, who was busy talking to Gray on his right—the guy with the tattoo on his neck who had let me in when I’d come for the audition. With them were several other men, on the table a bottle of vodka and several ice buckets holding half-empty bottles of champagne.
I hadn’t seen Fitz since my first visit to the club.
I got a ripple of applause and a few cheers when I climbed the pole and inverted—I think they all expected me to fall off, to be honest—and then did a split. They loved that one. I was keeping my eye out for one man in particular, someone I’d met here last Friday. Karim had ended up spending the rest of the evening with me in the VIP area, telling me about his business and buying me bottles of champagne and not noticing that he was drinking most of it. At the end of the evening he’d promised to come back.
By the time the music slowed and I went into my second dance, the one where the clothes came off, Fitz and the other guys were paying attention, too. I saw Dylan say something to Fitz, who was nodding.
At one of the other VIP booths, a group of guys in suits were applauding me enthusiastically, much to the disgust of the two girls who were sitting with them. I blew them a kiss, and when the song finished I grabbed my clothes and scooted off to get dressed.
When I came out a few moments later, one of the girls had given up and moved on to try her luck at the bar. I sauntered past Fitz and Dylan, feeling their eyes on me, and put a hand on the shoulder of the nearest, drunkest of the group. “Hi, guys,” I said. “Are you having fun?”
“You’re good at dancing,” one of them said. He was wearing a decent suit. I was getting better at spotting them.
“Thank you,” I said. “May I join you?”
I sat down in between two of them. Across the table, another girl, Crystal, was busy chatting up two of the younger guys, laughing with them and swigging down the champagne.
One of them poured me the last of their bottle of champagne, and another bottle was ordered—and I sipped mine while topping up their glasses, pretending to drink more than I was. Crystal wasn’t so cautious. Some of the girls knocked it back, then did a couple of lines of coke to sober themselves up every now and again. I aimed not to get drunk in the first place.
“Come and have a dance,” I heard her saying to one of the guys.
“I don’t have any money left,” he protested.
“You’re a fibber, Jason, I just saw your wallet! You’ve got cards.”
He made a noise of weak protest, but she was winning him over.
“You can get tokens at the bar. Come on—you know I’m the best,” she said, with the good grace to give me a wink.
“We should have a competition,” I said to the table in general. “Crystal and Viva, you decide the winner!”
We took them off to the private area one after the other and Crystal and I danced side by side for each of them in turn. An hour or so later we’d depleted their credit cards and the score—thankfully—was determined to be a dead heat.
I got a glass of ice water from the bar and drank it quickly, scanning the room for my next target. Still no sign of Karim.
Dylan appeared beside me, his bulk putting me in shadow. “Fitz wants a word.”
I followed him over to the booth. Two other men had joined the group, and Caddy was there, too, sitting on Fitz’s right side and sipping champagne. She gave me a smile and a wink.
“Viva! Come and join us,” Fitz called when he saw me, patting the seat next to him. “Guys, this is the lovely Viva. She’s just been here a couple of weeks.”
Fitz poured me a glass of champagne while I said hello to them all. I wondered if any of them were Caddy’s regulars. I didn’t want to tread on her toes.
“So, are you enjoying yourself, Viva?” Fitz asked.
“Oh, definitely,” I said. “It’s like having a fantastic night out with your friends every week.”
I wasn’t exaggerating. I’d had fun every night I’d worked so far, particularly when I was working with Caddy. The downside was that it was a bitch to get up for work on a Monday morning, but other than that I was having the time of my life. And earning money doing it.
“That’s good,” Fitz said. “I like to know my girls are happy.”
“Viva,” Caddy said, “your friend’s just turned up.”
I followed her gaze and saw Karim at the bar. He was watching me and I felt a fizz of excitement. I gave him a little wave. “Would you excuse me?”
“Of course,” Fitz said. “We mustn’t keep you.”
I stood and went over to the bar, smiling my best Viva smile.
Karim was my first “regular.” Over the following weeks, I collected quite a few more, but he was the one who earned me the most. Some of them, Karim included, became friends: people I liked and trusted and respected. And, as Caddy had said, having regulars was the key to making big money.
Chapter Thirteen
In the middle of January the club was quiet and I found myself bored for the first time.
There were so few customers that the girls almost outnumbered them. I was sitting at the bar, talking to one of Caddy’s regulars, trying to persuade him to come for a lap dance with me. He was so drunk he could barely stand, and making conversation with him was hard work.
“So where’s Kitten tonight?” he asked for the third time, breathing over me.
“She’s on vacation,” I explained again. “She’ll be back next week, though, Pete. And in the meantime I promised her I would take good care of you if you came in . . .”
“What about . . . Summer?” he said, hesitating over the name, as though he was struggling to bring it to mind.
I struggled myself for a moment, then I had a flashback to the drink I’d had with Caddy, and her explaining to me about Chanelle meeting up with one of her customers. I hadn’t seen her since then, but I worked only on weekends. She might have been working different shifts than me and our paths would never have crossed.
“I think she’s away, too,” I said.
I saw Dylan out of the corner of my eye, crossing the floor of the club directly toward me. He stood on the other side of Pete at the bar, and Tracey put a drink in front of him.
“Dylan,” I said, “Pete was asking about Summer—is she working a different night?”
He didn’t turn to look at me and for a moment I thought he hadn’t heard. But then he glanced at Pete and said something I couldn’t hear.
A few moments later, Pete stumbled off in the direction of the men’s room and I turned back to my glass of water.
“What did you say to him?” I asked, moving up to fill the space that Pete had vacated.
“Summer’s gone,” he said.
“Gone where?”
He knocked back the last of his drink. “No idea. Dancers come and go all the time.”
“It’s so quiet in here tonight,” I said.
“It’s always like this in January,” he said in reply. “Won’t get any
stags in till they get paid. Anyway, I came to find you. Fitz wants a word.”
I wondered if I was in trouble. I followed Dylan up the stairs, struggling to keep up in my heels. I heard voices and laughter from up the hall, faint, deadened by the heavy fabric and thick carpets.
“. . . like he said, he needs to learn who’s in charge . . .”
“. . . not this time, not after what happened . . .”
“. . . look, boss, we can fucking do it in an hour. Just give us the nod, all right?”
“. . . lads, lads. All I’m saying is, he owes me, right? It’s not about the money. It’s about the respect.”
Dylan was at the door. “Fitz.”
“Genevieve! Come in, come in.”
I gave him a wide, innocent smile that would have fooled no one, least of all him. He put an arm around my bare shoulder and drew me into the office. It smelled of whiskey and testosterone.
They were all in there, comfortably lolling in armchairs and sofas. The desk held a bottle of aged malt, three-quarters gone, and piles of cash in bundles.
“Nicks, Gray, this is our new star, Genevieve. You know Dylan already, of course.”
I recognized Gray. He was the one who’d let me in when I’d come for the audition. The guy next to him must have been Nicks—smart suit, leaner than Dylan and Gray, but his eyes said he wasn’t someone you should consider messing with.
Fitz had been drinking; I could tell by how unsteady he was on his feet.
“Did you want me to wait outside for a minute?” I said to him.
“Not at all, my dear, we were just finishing anyway. Have a seat. Drink?”
“I’d like a glass of water, please.”
It was Dylan who was sent up to the bar to get me water. I watched him retreat from the room, pulling a face as he did so. He was built like a tank.
“I wanted to put a proposition to you, Genevieve,” said Fitz. He was behind the desk now, fingers steepled. The other men were talking among themselves.
“Oh?”
“I wondered if you’d be interested in earning some extra money.”
“I’m always interested in that, Fitz. What did you have in mind?”